AN ACT
to authorize the department of health and human services, division of health
service regulation, to waive annual inspections of adult care homes that achieve
the highest rating, and to develop an informal dispute resolution procedure
that allows adult care homes to dispute cited inspection deficiencies.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1. G.S. 131D-2.11(a) reads as
rewritten:

"(a) State
Inspection and Monitoring. - The Department shall ensure that adult care homes
required to be licensed by this Article are monitored for licensure compliance
on a regular basis. All facilities licensed under this Article and adult care
units in nursing homes are subject to inspections at all times by the
Secretary. The Except as provided in subsection (a1) of this section,
the Division of Health Service Regulation shall inspect all adult care
homes and adult care units in nursing homes on an annual basis. In addition,
the Department shall ensure that adult care homes are inspected every two years
to determine compliance with physical plant and life-safety requirements."

SECTION 2. G.S. 131D-2.11 is amended by
adding two new subsections to read:

"(a1)Waiver of Annual
State Inspection. - The Division of Health Service Regulation may waive the
annual inspection requirement under subsection (a) of this section for any
adult care home that has achieved the highest rating in accordance with rules
adopted by the North Carolina Medical Care Commission pursuant to
G.S. 131D-10. However, at least once every two years the Division of
Health Service Regulation shall inspect any adult care home for which the
annual inspection requirement was waived.

(a2)Informal Dispute
Resolution. -

(1)The
Division of Health Service Regulation shall offer each adult care home an
opportunity, at the facility's request and upon the facility's receipt of the
official statement of deficiencies, to informally resolve disputed findings
from inspections conducted by the Division of Health Service Regulation in
accordance with this section.

(2)Failure
of the Division of Health Service Regulation to complete informal dispute
resolution timely does not delay the effective date of any enforcement action
taken by the Division of Health Service Regulation against an adult care home.

(3)An
adult care home is not entitled to seek a delay of any enforcement action
against it on the grounds that the Division of Health Service Regulation has
not completed informal dispute resolution prior to the effective date of the
enforcement action.

(4)If an
adult care home successfully demonstrates during informal dispute resolution
that any of the deficiencies cited in the official statement of deficiencies
should not have been cited, the Division of Health Service Regulation shall
remove the incorrectly cited deficiencies from the official statement of
deficiencies and rescind any enforcement actions imposed on the adult care home
solely as a result of the incorrectly cited deficiencies.

(5)Upon
request, the Division of Health Service Regulation shall provide an adult care
home with written notification of these informal dispute resolution procedures."

SECTION 3. This act becomes effective
October 1, 2011.

In the General Assembly read three times and ratified this
the 16th day of June, 2011.